Friday, May 16, 2014

72 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

72 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

17 - 19 May 1942, Barbara Anslow's diary

Posted: 03 Feb 2012 07:46 PM PST

Book / Document: 
Barbara Anslow's diary
Date of events described: 
Sun, 1942-05-17 - Tue, 1942-05-19

Rest of our goods arrived - lovely: cocoa, vitacup, muscatels, prunes, treacle,  jam, and cream of wheat. Bill was in Yen - 25.  We won't have to give up working at hosp. when Mum comes home after all, beause now we only work half-days instead of full days.

All sorts of news coming in - about Italy caving in, peace terms etc., about gas in England:  victories in Coral Sea; speeches by Churchill that victory is in sight; that Russians have broken through Germany's spring offensive, and vice versa.  All liable to be discounted the next day, as all the news seems to be.

We have a little garden now - Olive, Dorothy (Holloway) and I.  Sweet potatoes planted so far. ((That garden was only about 6 ft x 4 ft, a piece of rough ground among the rocks behind the hospital, it didn't do very well.  Much later when the rations grew worse, some one (either the Japs or our own camp officials) decided to convert the pre-war football ground near the Married Quarters into garden plots, and our family had one there which actually provided us with some crops.))

Now I have so much to do in spare time -am reading World Geography, and Florence Nightingale; teaching Miss Hill ((a nurse)) and Tony (Cole) shorthand; plus gardening and bread making  -  chiefly sifting flour because of weevils.

17 May 1942, R. E. Jones Wartime diary

Posted: 23 Apr 2012 06:51 AM PDT

Book / Document: 
R. E. Jones Wartime diary
Date of events described: 
Sun, 1942-05-17

No new reliable news.

Fine hot day.

Both feet swollen.

More sour bread.

Flies & mosquitoes on the increase.
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